Dunkirk (TV series)

Dunkirk
Genre	Docudrama
Written by	Alex Holmes · Neil McKay · Lisa Osborne
Directed by	Alex Holmes
Starring	Simon Russell Beale · Clive Brunt · Phil Cornwell
Narrated by	Timothy Dalton
Composer(s)	Samuel Sim
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	3
Production
Executive producer(s)	Mike Dormer · Peter Lovering · Laura Mackie
Producer(s)	Rob Warr
Editor(s)	Oliver Huddleston
Running time	60 minutes
Distributor	BBC
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC Two
Original run	February 18 – March 3, 2004
Chronology
Related shows	Dunkirk: The Soldiers' Story · The Other Side of Dunkirk
External links
Website

Dunkirk is a 2004 BBC television docudrama about the Battle of Dunkirk and the Dunkirk evacuation in World War II.

Reception

Awards

• BAFTA Awards 2005
  • Won: Huw Wheldon Award for Specialist Factual: Robert Warr & Alex Holmes
  • Nominated: BAFTA TV Award for Best Editing (Factual): Oliver Huddleston

• Biarritz International Festival of Audiovisual Programming 2005
  • Won: Golden FIPA for TV Series and Serials (Music): Samuel Sim

• Royal Television Society 2004
  • Nominated: RTS Television Award for Best Make Up Design (Entertainment & Non-Drama)
  • Nominated: RTS Television Award for Best Sound (Entertainment & Non-Drama)

Episodes

In May 1940, Britain came closer to losing the Second World War than at any other time. For ten days, the future of the country hung in the balance. This is the story of those desperate days. All the characters are real; all the events from first-hand accounts.

—Opening narration (spoken by the series' narrator, Timothy Dalton.)

Episode one: Retreat

Day 1: Cpt. Bill Tennant, RN, at the Admiralty receives reports of the British Expeditionary Force's retreat and prepares to oversee Operation Dynamo. Pvt. Alf Tombs and his decimated company rest at Wormhoudt on the western end of the corridor to Dunkirk. New Prime Minister Winston Churchill chairs a briefing of the War Cabinet where Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax presses for peace negotiations. Adolf Hitler has halted the Blitzkrieg giving Tombs’s company time to reinforce their position and signalmen Clive Tonry and Wilf Saunders return to offer support.

Day 2: Tennant sails from Dover on HMS Wolfhound to find the Port of Dunkirk decimated by enemy bombardment. Divisions between Churchill and Halifax deepen over the proposed mediation of Italy threatening a leadership crisis. Embarkation progresses slowly and Tennant signals the Queen of the Channel to come up alongside the eastern breakwater to speed up the process.

Day 3: Tonry and Saunders intercept enemy orders for a pincer movement on Dunkirk. Tombs’s company is forced to pull back as it comes under fire and Tonry and Saunders head into the front line in a last ditch attempt to hold open the corridor. After nine hours of fighting the line breaks as Tombs’s company surrenders to the advancing enemy and Tonry and Saunders retreat to Dunkirk. Tombs narrowly escapes as the rest of his company is massacred but is later recaptured and spends the rest of the war in a POW camp.

Day 4: Tennant orders all vessels to be brought up to the eastern breakwater at once for embarkation as numbers on the beach swell. Churchill decrees that the wounded should be left behind to speed up the retreat. The enemy launch aerial attacks on the beaches from captured British airfields south of Dunkirk, sinking 30 British ships and leaving 400,000 allied troops stranded on the beach.

Episode two: Evacuation

Day 5: V/Adm Bertram Ramsay and Cpt. Michael Denny at Dover issue the request for more inshore craft. Cpt. Tom Halsey and navigator David Mellis hold HMS Malcolm off the coast while small boats ferry troops to it. BEF commander Lord Gort, contemplating his unauthorised order to retreat from a villa overlooking the beach, organises a final defensive perimeter. French Adm. Jean Abriel first learns of the British evacuation from Tennant as French troops swell the numbers on the beach. Lt-Gen. Sir Henry Pownall reports the problem to Churchill.

When the cockleboat Renown is amongst those small boats requisitioned Cpt. Harry Noakes and his crew volunteer to stay on for the mission to France. With the entire British fleet tied up in the rescue operation Churchill orders the gassing of Britain’s south coast to ward off invasion. Gort and Tennant argue over evacuation strategy as the HQ comes under artillery fire. Churchill refusing to send support to the beleaguered French at the Somme agrees instead that their troop will be evacuated from Dunkirk on an equal basis.

Day 6: The Renown joins the hundreds of small craft that narrowly avoid running aground to rescue the troops from the French beaches. HMS Malcolm collects its passengers from the eastern breakwater, where it comes under bombardment. Maj-Gen Harold Alexander takes command after Gort is ordered back to London. HMS Malcolm returns to Dover where Holsey and Mellis contemplate the friends that they have lost on other ships. The Renown safely delivers its passengers to Dover but is destroyed by a mine on its way home. Tonry and Saunders are amongst the two thirds of the BEF evacuated safely back to England but 200,000 allied troops remain on the beach as the perimeter comes under attack from advancing enemy forces.

Episode three: Deliverance

Day 6: Lt. Jimmy Langley and Maj. Angus McCorquodale of the Coldstream Guards receive orders to hold the perimeter for one last night. Abriel, learning from Alexander of the imminent British pullout that will leave many French troops still on the beach, threatens to close the port. Philip Newman cares for wounded left behind at the casualty clearing station in an abandoned château on the outskirts of Dunkirk. Alexander and Tennant promise Abriel one last day to evacuate the French troops.

Day 7: Langley’s company engages the enemy at dawn as an exhausted Newman struggles to get the wounded to safety. Tennant informs Newman of the policy to de-prioritise the wounded and asks him to hold out for one more day. Enemy troops advancing on the perimeter use civilians as a shield and Langley has to rely on rifle fire to hold them back. Holsey and Mellis arrive onboard HMS Malcolm on their fifth rescue mission under heavy aerial fire. Newman remains to care for the wounded with a skeleton staff as the rest of the station staff withdraw. As the rearguard pull out, leaving the perimeter to be defended by the French, a badly wounded Langley is abandoned on the beach.

Day 8: Desmond Thorogood arrives in Dunkirk but must wait till nightfall for rescue. Ramsay meticulously plans the night's operations. When it is over Tennant sends his last signal from Dunkirk and embarks for home where he gets his first sleep on the train to London.

Day 9: Newman discovers the abandoned Langley and takes him into the station. The French troops covering the evacuation didn’t make it out in time so another night’s operations are required to pull them out. HMS Malcolm set out on her ninth mission to Dunkirk.

Day 10: Returning safely to Dover the crew of HMS Malcolm are granted three days leave. The operation is deemed a success, Churchill looks to the skies for what will be the next threat of total war. Dunkirk finally falls to the enemy but the rescued troops of the BEF make up the core of Britain's wartime army.

Cast

Simon Russell Beale as Winston Churchill Clive Brunt as Private Alf Tombs Phil Cornwell as Harry Noakes Benedict Cumberbatch as Lieutenant Jimmy Langley Ricci Harnett as Guardsman Desmond Thorogood Nicholas Jones as Major Angus McCorquodale Michael Legge as Signalman Wilf Saunders James Loye as Lieutenant David Mellis Kevin McNally as Major General Harold Alexander Roland Manookian as Frankie Osborne Alex Noodle as Lukie Osborne Adrian Rawlins as Captain Bill Tennant Rick Warden as Major Philip Newman Ben Abell as Corporal Gill Nicholas Asbury as Captain Michael Denny Richard Attlee as Clement Attlee Alex Avery as Captain J Hendry Mark Bagnall as Private Robert Garside Nick Bagnall as Naval Rating Harold Porter Richard Bremmer as Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay Osmund Bullock as Colonel Whitfield

John Carlisle as General Lord Gort Samantha Cooper as Lukie's Girlfriend Richard Durden as Lord Halifax Jack Fortune as Anthony Eden Christopher Good as Neville Chamberlain Glyn Grimstead as Donah Osborne William Hope as Cdr J Campbell Clouston Julian Kerridge as Corp Tich Humphreys Geoffrey Kirkness as Vice Admiral Tom Phillips Joseph Mawle as Lieutenant Ian Cox Sid Mitchell as Pie Osborne Scott James Moutter as Private G D S Gould Sean Murray as Captain Tom Halsey Michael O'Connor as Cockie O'Shea Andre Oumansky as Admiral Jean Abrial Lee Ross as Sergeant Moore Richard De Sousa as Private J Short Richard Sutton as Signalman Clive Tonry Daniel Weyman as Captain James Lynn-Allen Clive Wood as General Henry Pownall

DVD release

• Released on Region 2 DVD by BBC Video as part of the BBC World War II DVD Collection.^[1]

References

BBC portal

1. ^ "The World War Two Collection". BBC Shop. 2005-04-25. http://www.bbcshop.com/History/World-War-Two-Collection-The-DVD/invt/bbcdvd1728. Retrieved 2008-07-22. 

External links

• Dunkirk at the Internet Movie Database